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Rohan Jotwani, "Almost" MD/MBA

Rohan Jotwani is a co-founder of The "Almost" Doctor's Channel and serves as Managing Editor. He is currently an MD/MBA student at the Tufts School of Medicine and is an avid producer and reader on topics in digital health, neuroscience and global health. Raised in Seoul, South Korea and Flushing, Queens, Rohan graduated from Columbia University. He has previously worked at The Doctor's Channel, WebMD and Pfizer, and is the former President of the Columbia Debate team.

That’s right folks, you have been deceived about chameleons your entire life. Totally duped. Utterly bamboozled. Turns out that these clownish reptiles do not just “blend into” their environment as so many cartoons led us to believe when we were kids. In fact, the actual change of skin color depends on a complex pigmentation pattern controlled by chromatophore cells and signaling pathways that detect temperature and mood. As expected, some of you will blame the government on a mass conspiracy meant to rob us of our basic human right to understand our reptile brethren. Others will blame the fat cats of corporate America and the “education-military complex.” Still others will restart their subscription to National Geographic. We’re not really sure what you’re going to do once this confusing reality sets in, so all we can suggest is that you check out some of the pretty cool scientific literature on chameleons listed below. Extra reading: Stuart-Fox, D., & Moussalli, A. (2008). Selection for social signaling drives the evolution of chameleon color change. Public Library of Science Biology, 6, e25. Anderson, C.V. & Deban, S.M. (2010): Ballistic tongue projection in chameleons maintains high performance at low temperature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 107 (12): 5495–5499. Anderson, C.V., Sheridan, T. & Deban, S.M. (2012): Scaling of the ballistic tongue apparatus in chameleons. Journal of Morphology 273: 1214–1226. Featured image is a screenshot...

The cholera epidemic in Haiti was one of the worst public health outbreaks to plague an already devastated nation. After the catastrophic earthquake that took place on January 12, 2010, upwards of 7,490 people have died and 586,000 people have fallen ill to cholera. To make matters worse, UN peacekeepers from Nepal were implicated as the source of the outbreak. This must-see short documentary covers the aftermath of the outbreak as well as one boy’s personal story to keep hope alive for his family and community through baseball. Watch the film, share it with your network and visit undeny.org to sign the petition. Together we can end this crisis! Featured image is a screenshot from video above ...

The start of med school can be tricky. A syllabus that could have taken months at your undergraduate institution can be condensed into just a few weeks. Figuring out how to keep up with all the information is tough, especially because every person learns differently. And to top it all off, there are no shortage of study aids from review books to flash cards to apps. What’s a newbie med student to do? If you’re the kind of person that learns best visually, then we may have the perfect fix for you: molecularmovies.com. It’s basically a website that has aggregated many of the best educational animations out there on the web for topics in biology and medicine. If you’re someone like me, trying to figure out cell biology or biochemistry by interpreting the movement of molecules from words on a page can be daunting. But a short animation can really help make the relationships and interactions memorable. This site takes away all the hassle of having to search on youtube/google by giving you the best animations topic by topic. Here are a couple of examples from the site: DNA Replication: Breast Stem Cells: The Whole Brain Catalog: There are many more categories including: Apoptosis, Viruses, Development, the Immune System, etc. Note: Some of the links may not be working on this site, but overall, it’s a pretty expansive playlist. Featured...

Oh, orientation. Between the rush of meeting so many new people, the copious amounts of alcohol and the lectures on how not to get hep C during your time on the wards (hint: don’t stab yourself with needles you find on the floor), orientation helps create the perfect environment for the occasional awkward conversation. Here I catalog some of the best ones I was privileged enough to overhear this week. Number Seven Bro 1: You know how at every med school orientation there is that one bro who gets way too friendly with all the girls? That bro lives in infamy for the next four years. I bet that if you can’t name that guy off the top of your head, chances are you are that bro. Bro 2: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m that bro. Don’t worry, there are support groups on campus, bro. Number Six Girl: I’m definitely considering campaigning for our class’s social chair. When I was an RA in college, I used to host these sick study breaks all based on fruit themes: bananas, strawberries, pineapples, all the best fruits out there. For Chinese New Year, I did one with the dragon fruit and I spent like $500 on getting fruit directly from China and it was so awesome because I made everyone dress up as a dragon fruit. I really think I could pull...

“I am the voice of my generation. Well, maybe a voice.” – Lena Dunham, Girls (HBO) ________________________________________________________ Two days ago, I was ordering an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts when I witnessed something rather remarkable. An old man walked in and ordered right after me. The sweat on this guy’s gray t-shirt ran down from his neck, creating a deep and dark V shape, and his blue jeans almost sagged to the floor off the weight of his utility belt. “A to Z Construction” his shirt said on the back. “Dark roast iced as big as they get,” he told the woman at the register. “At least they got us drilling inside half the day. This summer heat…woo-wee,” he continued. “Mmm-hmm,” she responded. She took his money, handed him a receipt and he came over to stand with the rest of us waiting hopefuls. A twenty-something kid walks in and right up to the old man. He says he found a wallet on the job site and that the wallet has 300 bucks in it. He’s giddy because he needed to get his girlfriend a gift anyways and thinks the pink wallet is perfect. The old man responds (and this is the amazing part), “Act only on maxims through which you can will become universal laws.” “Wha’d you say?” the kid replies back, dumbfounded. “What if some girl found...